LETTERS TO BUSINESS

Published
4:00 am PST, Sunday, October 31, 2004

energy_544_df.JPG
Ford has built a test car which runs on hydrogen stores in this tank in the back of the car. Ford Motor Company is among the U.S. auto makers who are trying to improve fuel efficiency and address energy issues. Deanne Fitzmaurice / The Chronicle Ran on: 10-26-2004
A fleet of brand-new Ford Escape hybrid SUVs stands lined up ready for test drives at an outdoor auto show in San Mateo. MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT Business#Business#Chronicle#10/31/2004#ALL#2star#D6#0422386247 less

energy_544_df.JPG
Ford has built a test car which runs on hydrogen stores in this tank in the back of the car. Ford Motor Company is among the U.S. auto makers who are trying to improve fuel efficiency and ... more

Photo: Deanne Fitzmaurice

Photo: Deanne Fitzmaurice

Image
1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

energy_544_df.JPG
Ford has built a test car which runs on hydrogen stores in this tank in the back of the car. Ford Motor Company is among the U.S. auto makers who are trying to improve fuel efficiency and address energy issues. Deanne Fitzmaurice / The Chronicle Ran on: 10-26-2004
A fleet of brand-new Ford Escape hybrid SUVs stands lined up ready for test drives at an outdoor auto show in San Mateo. MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT Business#Business#Chronicle#10/31/2004#ALL#2star#D6#0422386247 less

energy_544_df.JPG
Ford has built a test car which runs on hydrogen stores in this tank in the back of the car. Ford Motor Company is among the U.S. auto makers who are trying to improve fuel efficiency and ... more

Photo: Deanne Fitzmaurice

LETTERS TO BUSINESS

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

'Lumbering big guys' offer some benefits

Editor -- I take umbrage with David Lazarus' characterization of my employer, American Airlines, as one of the "fat, lumbering big guys of the skies" ("Rough ride for airlines," Lazarus at Large, Oct. 27).

His description indicates to me that he would rather adopt the prejudicial rhetoric of the times than provide a lucid commentary on the economics of air travel in the United States.

I know that I speak for thousands of employees of the so-called legacy carriers when I say that any system that allows unfettered supply with limited demand will continue to be forced to reduce the price of its product. Economics 101, wouldn't you agree?

Do the JetBlues, Southwests, Airtranses, ATAs, etc. provide baggage transfer? Do they serve international destinations? Do they provide their employees with benefits? Of course not. Yet they are allowed -- in fact, encouraged -- to enter the prime markets and skim the easy profits while uncritical morons like Lazarus continue the drumbeat of "failed business models."

Wow, that sounds so MBA. Here's an MBA flash for you: Lazarus is praising the "Wal-Mart-ization" of our country, where applications for government assistance are part of the pre-employment paperwork and drug test.

I'll bet he resents the taxes he pays to support those Wal-Mart employees who work just below the full-time threshold, too.

Is Lazarus really saying that no employee "deserves" to earn a good living with the security of a comfortable retirement and medical care (except him, of course), or is he saying that the legacy carriers are victims of abysmal luck and managements that are way too slow to react to that bad luck? What is it?

Of course, my fellow employees and our management "got off the dime" over a year and a half ago, but we aren't praised for our pro-active approach to these difficult times.

Instead, USAir and United are allowed to flood the skies with cheap seats while enjoying the benefits of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Is that fair? Of course not. But no one really cares as long as they can fly anywhere for less time and money than it would take to clear the state line.

I think that someday we will look back upon this sad dismantling of the domestic air travel industry and see that pronouncements of the popular press praising the low-cost entrants as equally shortsighted.

DAN BERGTHOLDT

Novato

New workers' comp system unfair to docs

Editor -- The article "Rules for Workers' Comp Change" (Oct. 23) points out that insurers and employers must create provider networks for the treatment of injured workers, and that these provider networks will essentially be the only physicians authorized to treat the injured worker.

Because many employers and insurers do not have the experience to assemble such networks, third parties are becoming involved. Undoubtedly the third parties will reduce physician fees by 10 to 20 percent. Physicians treating injured workers will be compelled to sign contracts with these third parties because their patients will be unavailable to them if they are not on a provider list. Thus, in an identical fashion to the prior managed-care gambit, physicians will suffer yet another reduction of fees.

Successful practices may elect out of the workers' compensation system, and patients, physicians and the system itself will suffer while a new group of administrative intermediaries benefits. Division of Workers' Compensation Director Andrea Hoch, the state's Labor and Workforce Development Agency and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should ensure that this does not occur.

DR. LESLIE SCHOFFERMAN

San Francisco

The sky isn't falling for California business

Editor -- Stephen Levy did a good job debunking the "sky is falling" rhetoric that Arnold Schwarzenegger used so well in his successful run for governor ("On the Record: Stephen Levy," Oct. 24).

Complex regulations and workers' compensation costs may indeed have forced some businesses to outsource jobs, but as Levy argues, California outside the Bay Area has outpaced most of the nation in job growth in recent years.

And he could have bolstered his point by mentioning the Forbes 400 list of the nation's wealthiest people. Over the past two decades, the number with New York addresses has dropped from 81 to 47, while the number with California addresses has soared from 56 to 95. Obviously, the business and living climate for California zillionaires has never been better, since one-fourth of the nation's wealthiest now live here.

Editor -- Thank you for the article on hybrid vehicles ("Energy and America's future/The gamble for Detroit," Oct. 26). But why so much copy dedicated to hydrogen vehicles without the important caveat that hydrogen itself is no panacea?

Energy is required to produce hydrogen. If the United States doesn't move toward alternative energy sources such as wind and solar, we will end up making hydrogen by simply burning more fossil fuels. That's why the oil and coal lobbies love hydrogen.

What comes out of the tailpipe may just be water, but additional fossil- fuel power plants will exacerbate poor air quality in vulnerable communities where these plants will undoubtedly be located.

Hydrogen vehicles themselves will not take us any closer to cleaner skies or independence from oil.